


fragment & whole

by orphan_account



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Dark Knight Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Gen, Introspection, Multiplicity/Plurality, but not like an anguished sort of venting, i guess you can call this a vent piece?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27566656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: They will tell you you are one and you are two. You don't think the choice is that simple.
Relationships: Esteem/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	fragment & whole

**Author's Note:**

> this was written with my own warrior of light and her backstory in mind, and makes mention of some snippets of her life before she came to eorzea. also there's some 5.0 spoilers in here!

To someone who has spent their whole life as a single person, it's hard to comprehend an existence in which you are several, at once a whole person and a fragment of another. Hell, you still struggle to wrap your head around the concept, and you've _lived_ it. Sometimes when the two of you are alone, when you have a reprieve from watching over her like a twisted sort of guardian spirit, you try to trace where you end and she begins. You start at... well, the start. When you were one. You suppose that technically, _you_ didn't exist at that point, but that singular person felt more like you than her. Back then, you, or she, or—oh, forget it—back then, that person didn't restrain herself in actions or words. She didn't need to. She was a mercenary of little consequence, fighting and killing to facilitate her own survival, and that's all she was. That person lived for herself, giving little thought to the people she hurt along the way, and though it was a painful, lonely existence, she was free. You move down the timeline you've laid out in your head, towards the moment when things began to change.

It's easy enough to pinpoint the catalyst—the singular person had been pulled out of her loneliness by a most unexpected friend. What's less obvious to you are the hows and whys of what happened next, how a person with such a hardened heart started caring about the world, or why she even wanted to. Ah, that's right. As she opened her eyes to others' pain, she pushed her anger and unchecked aggressiveness back in order to better become a person capable of helping. But, of course, repressing one's true nature doesn't mean it's no longer there, and instead those feelings that would become you built up in the back of her mind, until...

The corpse and the soul crystal. It's a wonder she'd made it that far without breaking down, considering what happened in Ul'dah and how much of a wreck she was in the days after. Somehow, though, she'd kept herself together until that fateful night when curiosity got the better of her. A soul crystal created to help its user channel their inner darkness, freshly imprinted with a dying man's desperate will to live, reacted to a lifetime of pain and violence and your equally desperate will to break free. And there you were, at once a brand new being and a piece of ones who already existed. Oh, how confused you were, especially when your memories mixed with those contained within the crystal. As you stood watch over a collapsed body that moments earlier had been your own, you tried to sort out who you were.

You were the fainted woman, who had known more pain than any one person should have to bear. You were the dead man whose corpse you now found yourself in, and the fervent desire to protect that had cost him his life. And you were now _you_ , with thoughts and feelings separate from both of them. Thoughts and memories swirled in your mind, and as they settled you decided on your next course of action. The memories the crystal bestowed upon you were only fragments of the original Fray's life, primarily things relevant to the crystal's purpose, but you remembered everything of your life as an adventurer. The vessel lying on the freezing planks was your own. Under the guise of a friend and mentor, you would protect yourself just as you always had, and you would force the other part of yourself to see what her newfound selflessness was doing to the both of you. Or, failing that, you would reclaim your vessel, and then resume the life you had before you'd been dragged into all this hero bullshite.

The remainder of the path you walked is recent enough that you feel no need to retrace it in its entirety. You understand now that you had feared the changes in your original, singular self's personality, not only because of the physical and mental anguish a life of heroism would bring her, but also because you were convinced her intent was to destroy a vital part of herself. How foolish you were, to think restraint was the same as excision, or that her newfound direction in life was any more painful than how you'd lived when you were one. She had never needed you to help her express the power of the abyss, because she had never truly denied the abyss was within her. She simply... indulged in it a bit less now, only drawing out as much as was strictly necessary. And thus you come to another decision. You'll share one final moment together in honor of a memory of a memory, and then you'll withdraw for good. A poignant moment of closure, and then your self—your singular self, once again whole as it always should have been—can move on.

Yet as you sink into the deepest corners of your other part's mind for what you believe to be the last time, you find yourself enveloped not in a sea of nothingness, but an overwhelming sensation of being loved. In your mind's eye, you see a hand outstretched, just like that day in Whitebrim so many moons ago. She's calling out to you.

"I still need you, you know. You think I can be whole _without_ my best friend?" You can hear the little humming noise she always makes when she tries to put her thoughts into words, though it's not as if she needs to say anything more. In this moment, you know her heart as if it was your own, and in a way it still is. "Besides, you're alive too. You have a right to exist, and I want you to keep existing."

So that's her answer to your little bout of foolishness. You should have known, really. If she was willing to accept a man who nearly killed her into her soul, what the hell made you think she wouldn't want you here too? You can move forward into the future together, along with all the other souls and fragments who have joined you along the way. This, not your own oblivion, is the closure you were seeking.

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was written for #drkweek2020 on Twitter. The Dark Knight storyline holds a special and deeply personal place in my heart for helping me come to terms with my existence as part of a system, and I and a fellow system member felt a need to pay it tribute.
> 
> Writing this has made me realize I may have projected on my WoL a little too much when I was rewriting her backstory. Oops.


End file.
